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What will you need to do differently when traveling if you'd have to put laptops, tablets, and larger smartphones into checked luggage on the way home?

I wouldn't feel happy about checking my ipad, so I would not bring it anymore. I couldn't back up photos. Without the ipad, I'd have to do more research before I go, which I had slacked off of lately, and bring printed lists again. Without the ipad, I will hate air travel even more than I do now. I might not feel comfortable about being away for longer trips. Those are a few things that would change for me.

I definitely wouldn't bring my tablet under these circumstances; I know my tablet will disappear. I guess I'd have to just read and play games / music just on my phone. A pain, but doable. The tablet was especially helpful on my trips when I needed to look up something, which was easier on a bigger screen than a phone.

It's a good thing I don't do international business travel because I don't see how those folks will deal with not working on the plane or the risk of having their company laptops stolen from checked luggage.

I have always taken my laptop (which I use mostly for backing up photos, or any business that simply cannot be put off until I return) in checked luggage, so I don't think it will impact me much. For European travel, I check a bag which used to be considered legal for carryon (when they didn't count the wheels), but which can also be expanded a bit, and then had a small tote bag in the cabin. I usually put my electronics in the checked bag so that I didn't have to fool with them going through security.

However, the last few times I've flown domestically, I've traveled with a tablet rather than my laptop so that I can go strictly carryon, and I have used it in flight. If this ban ever extends to domestic travel, then it will impact me.

I can't blog on my phone. I guess I could go back to getting CDs cut to back up my photos!

However, I am more likely to switch to repositioning cruises (am already considering that for next year to get a quick look at the Azores). Would also consider flying into Canada, unless it goes the same way.

Do think the airlines may come up with some better answers than putting valuables in checked luggage. I think one of the ME airlines was gate checking electronics in padded boxes.

twk I hope you remove the battery from your laptop - Lithium batteries are not supposed to be carried in the hold, which begs the question which offers more risk - a terrorist bomb or a Lithium battery fire in the hold? 33 cases of Lithium fires in the hold known to FAA last year, mostly in the cabin and successfully extinguished. Impossible to extinguish with current fire extinguishers in the holds on planes.

I won't be flying anywhere, any time soon so it has no affect on me, but if I were there is no way I would check my DSLR camera.
Laptop I can do without I guess, just take/buy more SD cards or buy a film camera or not take photos at all, and go back to reading real books for the duration.

I travel with just my phone, but was considering getting an e-reader for longer flights--now I think I won't, because I prefer reading on paper anyway, so the whole point of the e-reader, for me, was to use it on airplanes. Never mind!

I would be very annoyed to have to check my phone, though, it's just too useful (during layovers, for example) but I suppose the whole rest of the world would be annoyed, too.

SO takes long haul flights pretty often, and is bummed to have to leave his iPad at home. He liked having it as a backup if the in-flight entertainment system was down, or just the screen at his seat broken, which has happened to him before. He is considering putting it into his checked luggage for his next trip, but he doesn't need the iPad so much on the ground.

Many people need their laptops urgently, not on the plane but in general if they are traveling for work. Gate checking them in padded boxes, as, indeed, one of the ME carriers was doing, is great, but I bet too costly for the majority of carriers to do.

If the ban happens before June 1, I will have some adjustments to make before I fly home out of Paris at the end of May. Already over here with small laptop, small tablet, two (small) Android phones. I didn't check any bags coming over, wasn't planning to going home but could check one of them. Not only am I worried about losing or breaking something, I won't have much to read on the 10+ hr flight to Seattle without the ebooks on the tablet. I did bring a few small paperbacks - guess they might come in handy!

My other worry is that officials at airport security in Paris will be confused and overwhelmed trying to understand the new rules and that security will take forever. So how many hours early should I expect to arrive before my flight now?

Theft is always a risk, but there is also the jostling, which isn't good for laptops (notebooks and tablets fare better). We travel with 22" bags that rarely weigh more than 25 lbs and I swear they get tossed around more than big bags. Wouldn't want my laptop inside.

Ugh - I travel often for work, never check luggage and often have to use my laptop during the flight, even when on vacation. Gate checking the laptop could work, and routing through also Canada sounds good...as does moving there permanently.

I bring my iPad Air with me so that I have dozens of books and magazines to read as well as streaming TV. I definitely don't feel comfortable leaving it in checked luggage (and rarely check a bag, anyway). Guess I'll be loading up on used books that I can leave at my destination. Oy.

Don't most carriers clearly state that they're not responsible for valuables in checked luggage? So who's going to be liable now for expensive items that get "lost" if travelers are being forced to check expensive electronics?

I'm seriously unhappy about this.
I'd be fine during the flight without my electronics, but it's the checking of them that bothers me. I would still want to be able to bring my tablet and my camera on my trip which means checking them (and a bag, which I don't typically do) on the way home.
First, there's the risk of theft and damage. Then there's the risk of fire with all those Lithium Ion batteries in the hold.
And really, isn't this just Security Theater? If there's a bomb in a laptop in the hold, couldn't it be detonated via a cell phone in the cabin? Or a timer? And why should we think the screening of items going into the hold will be any better than carry on items?
Is Homeland Security really saying that the passenger screening at LHR or CDG is any worse than JFK or LAX?
Finally, whose responsibility is it if something gets damaged? And what about baggage fees for checked bags which would not otherwise be checked?

My last travel insurance policy covered $1000 in baggage and personal effects. I have no idea, without doing some digging, how they value personal effects (replacement cost, fair market value, etc). So, while I don't think the policy differentiates between "valuable" and "nonvaluable," it's quite possible that the insurer would only pay the FMV of, say, a camera or laptop versus what it would cost to actually replace it. Some credit cards offer additional coverage if you use the card to purchase the plane tickets. Homeowner's insurance is also an option, although the deductible and risk of increased rates make it a less than attractive option. Certainly, if I was forced to stowe electronics, there's no way I'd fly without an insurance policy and I'd make sure I understand how and what it covered.

But even with adequate insurance, making claims, arguing with an insurer, and waiting for coverage determinations or a check to be cut is no fun, especially if you're out something as vital as a laptop you use for business.

nothing, as I don't carry any of those things to Europe. I travel to travel lightly, I don't see a need for a laptop in Europe. Now I don't own a smartphone but if I did, I probably would take that. I do take a tablet when traveling in the US, but I downsize more when going to Europe, I don't really need it, it's just for idle entertainment in the room to read newspapers or something. I can read my email on it, but it wouldn't matter much if I didn't and most hotels I stay in has a guest computer, anyway.

I can understand this is a problem for work people, but otherwise, there isn't any reason people need these for entertainment. I guess people haven't heard of books or magazines. Not to mention, you can always bring your Ipod or whatever music MP3 player you have. On top of that, I personally have never been on a flight to/from Europe that did not have a personal entertainment system. I don't really enjoy movies on those bitty screens anyway and don't understand why so many people even like watching movies on laptops, etc. But this may be shocking to some, but back in the day, those didn't exist and somehow we managed to fly and just read books and listen to music.

Of course I have heard of books. I own a rather large number of them. They weigh a lot and take up a lot of room. I travel for months at a time, being able to read ebooks on my iPad makes a big difference. It is true I could read on my phone, but I prefer a bigger screen. I also blog my trips, and post in-process TRs here. No way am I going to do that on a phone.

I'd wrap my checked luggage in plastic at the departing airport if I had valuables inside..

But I'd try not to worry about this until the rules are changed.

I'm leaving soon for a destination where I will have no internet connections for 10 days or so...should be good practice. I've traveled with a smart phone only in the last two years; before that I took no phone. Only used online maps for the past few years.

About traveling with books, I do so all the time as I'm not a fan of ebooks etc. I usually take two books. Always take paperback and never anything that's even close to being considered a tome. I presently have a half dozen books I haven't read yet and will take the smaller two with me when I travel in June. When finished with them, I leave in my room or give away. I don't buy souvenirs; I buy books but at the end of my trip unless I run out of reading material before then. They really don't take up much room, will fit in backpack or into those odd spaces in luggage. I do travel with iPad and phone but have no problem putting iPad in checked bag. I use a 22" carry on, but I always check it as I hate dealing with it if I don't have to.

I traveled for years without electronics so I know it can be done. Before they became seemingly essential items, I remember sending faxes from my hotel to Mr. History and thinking that was really a clever means of communicating. I agree that business travelers will be adversely affected but surely the rest of us can cope.

I don't understand why you can't back up your photos if your tablet or laptop is in the hold. Do you mean you'd leave it at home? If that's the issue, you can back up your photos to your phone, or to the cloud using your phone as the courier. You just need a USB SD card reader, and a big-to-little USB cable.

Recently we've been taking three to six week trips, so what I want along for these longer periods of time is different from those who are perhaps taking a one week trip.

I was just planning to buy a nice, new, high quality camera to replace my old one. This would now need to go in to checked baggage. I take tons of photos on our trips and would be unhappy about the theft of a camera even if the photos had been backed up. My husband also has his expensive camera he travels with.

I can easily live without an e-reader during flight because I always bring a paperback book or two, but I still would want one for the extended trips we take because I can load quite a few books on it; it too would need to go into checked baggage now too.

We've been traveling with a switch laptop that also converts to a tablet.

Currently we always put all of these things in our carry-on luggage. If this change occurs, they would all have to go into checked baggage and be vulnerable to theft. Not happy!

I'm not really worried about this happening. Banning them from middle eastern flights probably effects a relatively low number of business travelers. Banning them from Europe flights probably means inconveniencing a far greater number of people. dhs has a lot of power but so do the airlines and the airlines cater heavily to the people who want to use their devices inflight.

And then them there's the lithium battery issue. The fact that they're just looking into that now probably indicates they aren't completely sold on taking on the public and airlines over this.

As for me, if it did happen, I'd buy an iPhone plus, maybe, to use in flight to read books. I usually grab a magazine or newspaper at the airport anyway. I'm not too worried about my iPad getting stolen out of my luggage, and my renters insurance protects me from loss while travelling anyway.

But like I said, I'm not sure it's something to be concerned about. Either the airlines will have to come up with a way to appease people who regularly travel with their electronics- like claim checks and a special padded gate check cabinet- or dhs will back down. Most of their rules, interestingly, don't impact airlines that much. Less luggage helps airlines out. Limited liquids mean passengers just scale back and fly anyway (I mean they could have done away with liquids entirely if they were really worried about shampoo). This, though, will definitely at least effect customer attitudes. I would not want to be security enforcing that or flight attendants on flights with people who not only get no food or free entertainment, they also can't wallow in their own media or work.

Good point about the kids. Or teen relatives. There would certainly be more money spent on margaritas, I can say that much.

(I want to believe me too, pavot! The kindle would not help, that's the maddening thing. I carry my ipad/ereader pretty much solely for plane/airline distraction unless it's a really long trip. I use my iPhone for pretty much everything else when traveling.)

I would really, really miss the ereader. Before those, we're talking AT LEAST 3 paperbacks for one way long haul flight. And that really adds up in terms of luggage weight and room.

Game boys- or at least whatever the equivalent is- are actually more complex than a simple tablet these days. I would think if you can disguise a bomb as an Ipad, you could do the same with a game boy. My neighbor has one, and it's got a lot more features than my cousins old game boy did.

But then again, I don't really understand why tablets are ok and not something like an iPad mini. The only different is the screen and camera. So if Ipad is danderous why is my iPhone safe?

Man, if this goes through I am going to be so mad. I just bought six novels on my iPad for our two week trip. I used to haul paperbacks and they weigh a ton, especially if you're doing train travel. I still need email for my business as well.

I hope it doesn't happen - and that they come out with a statement in the next ten days, before we leave. I need to know. I'm not leaving an iPad in checked luggage.

I usually carry a Kindle Paperwhite - that should be allowed? I would be happy to not carry anything else and chill, I am usually so far behind on TV and movies and everything else. A little naive, to think that a device larger in physical dimensions could do more harm than a smaller device, but whatever. Good respite to not have it while travelling for work, I don't always look forward to it.

So according to the most detailed article I could find on the ban for middle eastern airlines- they're literally banning everything larger than a cell phone other than medical equipment. So no amazon paper whites and no gameboys- both prohibited. And I can just see them confiscating some grandma's ten year old digital camera. I can see them confiscating my digital camera because I never remember where I stick it.

Gosh that sounds like fun day at the airport and flight. Not. One of the more entertaining critiques of this is that all an enterprising terrorist has to do is fly into, say, Canada, and catch a flight to the US.

I just don't get it. If they really think this is a high risk situation, it's not like it's hard to get your hands on medical equipment anyway. I mean it says that they will allow those on after screening but they already screen laptops. If they can't tell the different between a "bad" laptop and a "good" laptop, then how are they going to effectively screen cell phones and medical equipment?

I don't take my MacBook Air to Europe, S.E. Asia, and other places for entertainment purposes. It's my main means of communication with both family, here in the U.S., for elderly parent information/updates, contacting friends overseas on trips, and checking to see if any of my many flights have been changed or if there's a problem with my accommodations etc.

I don't have a cell phone with internet service etc and hardly ever use a cell phone overseas anyhow as it's expensive and I find it a hassle. So, the internet is accessed on my MacBook Air, for free, and which has a screen large enough for me to see. And as for internet cafes, in places where I travel, they're becoming fewer and fewer as many that I used, just 5 years ago, are now gone.

Tomorrow, I will be going out to look for an inexpensive laptop as I saw a Dell for $199. It might have to end up being my travel laptop as I don't want my MacBook Air in a suitcase and checked in. When I was flying from Copenhagen to Venice, Italy, summer before last, my suitcase arrived with the TSA lock open and dangling from the metal, suitcase tab. Fortunately nothing was missing inside of my suitcase, but it looked as if it had been gone through a bit. I'm going to have to figure it out as I leave within a month and don't want it to be my luck that, while away, suddenly a big ban pops up and I end up in the mess of it.

On a personal traveling level, nothing will change for me.On a business travel level, this could be an issue because not only would the risk of computer theft would significantly rise, but so would the rise of unauthorized copying of drives by foreign governments and third parties.

If the international business community kicks up enough fuss, they'll likely rescind on this idea.

Trouble is, rs899, it's not the size of the screen that is the real problem, although I have no idea how you could type efficiently at an angle you could also read your screen. I can work on an iPad, but it makes life more difficult. I went 6 months with just an Ipad and keyboard to see if I could do without buying a new laptop. It's the whole operating system that makes it difficult. Phone is the same issue. Websites load differently, software is sometimes weird. I ended up buying a laptop because I wanted normal capabilities instead of finding work arounds for mobile every time.

So unless the "businessman" is just into social media, I can't see mobile device and Bluetooth as a serious suggestion that they'd adopt.

I don't travel with anything that would be affected. My wife likes to take her mini ipad. So I guess she would have to bite the bullet and put her old full size ipad in her checked bag and risk it being stolen. If someone stole it then their need must have been greater than our need and we would chalk it up to an act of charity.

I always have to check my bag not because of size or weight but because I always travel with a Swiss Army Knife. So my wife always checks her bag as well and avoids having to fight for space in an overhead bin with everyone else.

Don't you just love the way the digital age has made our lives so much easier. LOL

The larger and more important issue is not whether you personally will miss your devices. The insistence by the US to put large numbers of devices in the baggage hold is a safety risk.

It means your safety is being gravely jeopardized even if you never travel with electionic devices. If everybody else's devices are in the baggage compartment of your plane, the passengers now have increased danger.

I live in the Pacific Northwest so I would probably drive to Canada for an international flight because of the safety risk.

I use a nice Canon point-and-shoot for my better photos. It doesn't have wifi or any of that, but that apparently doesn't seem to matter to TSA.

Last year, my dad checked his electric razor on just a domestic flight. His bag got opened by TSA and they didn't repack the razor at all. He had it in a sock and wrapped in a shirt before the security got a hold of it. They just threw it in there loose.

The razor broke. United wouldn't pay because of the TSA stickers on his bag. So I'm not too interested in checking my camera.

I remember back to summer 2006 terrorist plot in London. I was traveling from London to Madrid that day for a 10 day vacation throughout Spain and had all my electronics with me. Everything had to be checked. It was pandemonium at the airport that evening, but the airlines were brilliant in how they handled it an everyone was co-operative. I packed my electronics in by suitcase and used the 'wrap' service, reasoning that at least I would know at the other end if my bags had been interfered with.

I imagine businesses will now have accelerated programs to use the Cloud so travelers can access their files from anywhere, in case of theft of laptops.

I would have difficultly reading books on my iPhone, but download audible books from audible.com/uk and movies from Netflix. Consider it, just in case.

I'm planning to go to Morocco next year and the electronics ban will affect us, assuming it's still in effect by next Spring. I really can't imagine checking our camera and iPad in our luggage -- way too risky. Not sure how to handle this at all.

We use the iPad for, photo storage - we download our pix daily, travel research, reading material books - you name it, it's an important part of our travels. While we have iphones, I can't imagine using them in the same way as the iPad.

I don't know what we'll do.

Yes, I think it's all DHS theater, as someone in an earlier post suggested.

I don't understand how the wrap service works. It doesn't prevent anyone from breaking into the bag, and it doesn't prevent TSA from opening it to check? If that is the case, I don't see what good it is to know somebody has gone into the bag if my items are missing. Is it just a matter of making a wrapped bag a less appealing target than an unwrapped bag?

I am a big fan of the 7 inch tablet and probably have about ten of them lying around. I don't know that particular Kindle fire, but I am sure it is worth having. What bugs me about them is the constant " buy amazon" drumbeat. I am typing this on an Fire hdx that I got working on plain vanilla Android and it is a joy to use.

You can also go to Walmart now and get something usable for less than $50. But check the screen resolution and processor speed unless you want to drive yourself nuts with a cheap tablet.

"I don't understand how the wrap service works. It doesn't prevent anyone from breaking into the bag, and it doesn't prevent TSA from opening it to check?"

It makes it harder, the plastic is thick and wrapped several times. You'd need a good, sharp knife. Thieves usually go for the easiest target, for instance, the neighborhood website I'm following these days gets quite a lot of posts from people whose cars have been "broken into" but it usually turns out they weren't locked.